What is WEB3?
Why does Twitter founder Jack Dorsey and Tesla founder Elon Musk think it is a scam? And what difference does this technology makes to us?
Today, let's understand in simplest term that what's gonna be "The Future of Internet". Read this blog till end and let me know what you feel about this sensational hot 🌶 topic?
Before we understand what WEB3.0 is, let's understand a lil bit about the history of the internet.
- From 1991-2004, we saw the first generation of the internet.
The internet looked somewhat like this
The internet we see today is quite different from internet back then
Today, sharing photos, videos on the internet is normal.
But, thus would not have been possible back then
Internet was something like this
It was only a newspaper. You could only see a static page on your screen, where you could only read text. Basically Interaction was
Internet was one-way communication tool. We were the consumers, whatever the internet threw at us, we would collect it and consume it.
Something happened in 2004, that changed our life. Users were not only consumers anymore. We ourselves started giving these websites content. Think about it.
- How many Videos does YouTube make and upload?
- Does Instagram upload daily Reels on their account?
- How many tweets does Twitter post on it's account?
- How many tech blogs does Hashnode uploads on their website?
But we make videos. We dance on the reels. We get involved in political fights on twitter. We read daily tech blogs on Hashnode.
Out of all the content there on the internet, 86% content is produced by the users, not by the companies.
But story doesn't end here.
Just imagine, 100 years ago, if you had to send a message to your girlfriend. How would you have done it?
You would write a letter and hand it to the postman and you would wait for the postman to deliver the letter.
But the postman turned out to be sneaky, He opens the letter and reads it.
You might find it a little difficult to understand. Not because you've never written a letter before But because you are single.
Jokes Apart!
But this is what internet companies do today, they read our data.
They use this data to show us ads and sell products. But what choice do we have? If we want to do anything on social media, we will need a postman. The biggest Problem of WEB2.0 is LACK OF PRIVACY and TOTAL CONTROL WITH THE COMPANIES.
But WEB3.0 is trying to solve this very problem, with the help of blockchain. You will now be owner of your content. There are plenty of obstacles in the way to reach this simple result, which WEB3.0 is trying to solve it one by one.
1. The first obstacle is identity
When I search on Google: "How to make Dalgona coffee".
Google knows my identity. It knows how many times I go out in a week, and how many times I order in. Google gets a soft signal to show me more coffee shops, and for this Google charges money from those brands. So, ultimately I am a product. Incognito doesn't really work. Your search history can be erased from your device, but the internet remembers your identity and this identity can be misused.
But WEB3.0 gives you an entirely new identity. Just like superheroes hide their true identity, so villains can't use it against the superheroes and can't find their weaknesses. Similarly we will be able to mask our identity.
2. The second obstacle is Censorship
No matter how much all social media platforms lectures about the importance of free speech. Ultimately, only a few people actually control what goes on the platform and what does not.
For example, Twitter suspended Donald Trump's account. A few people in the twitter decided that we don't want Trump on this platform and in an snap the ex-president of the United States of America was gone from social media platform.
What do you think? Should Twitter or any social media platform have so much control and power in their hands? That they decide who is right and who is wrong?
Going one step forward, Platforms like Twitter can take political sides. Someone must be deciding these policies, right. Big CEOs are forcing their ideologies on people. they have become the gatekeeper of the information.
Their is no CEO of the WEB3.0 social media. Decision will be take up by a code. These are called DAOs. Decentralized Autonomous Organizations. Basically, the rules of the game will be already decided. Some years ago, Carry Minati's video went viral and it was deleted in a few days of being uploaded.
The reason for this video deletion was that the video breaks the YouTube Community guidelines. But the rules and guidelines are not really clear. How will a platform know what is right and what is wrong? What is offensive and what isn't offensive?
Rules in DAOs are cleared through smart contracts. So then, there won't be any one human deciding but a code that will decide "What content will remain and what content won't remain on the platform". Maybe the code will stop offensive content before it is even uploaded.
3. The third obstacle is ownership
I am uploading this blog on Hashnode and DEV. But still, I don't own this blog. The video is owned by the platform. All the things related to this blogs will be decided by the platform. In fact how many readers will see this blog will also be decided by the platform. What's really in my control?
WEB3.0 gives you the control. It promises to give you the full ownership of your contents. Means, there is no middlemen. The postman is Gone! Who can watch your content? How much money to charge for this content. You decide all these things.
These things seems quite futuristic. And to be honest, quite impossible right now. But the truth is, people laughed at the present day internet as well.
Is WEB3.0 "A SCAM"?
Some people call WEB3.0 a revolution and some people consider it as a scam. People think cryptocurrencies are democratic in nature. Because they think one person can't control everything. But take a look at this chart.
Only a small percentage of coins are available for public sale. The other coins are already held by the insiders and founders. That means you can be a crypto millionaire, But before you some insiders would already be crypto billionaire. Because they hold the most coins. That means it's similar to what is happening right now, right? Same thing is sold to us in a different packaging.
Too much privacy can also give rise to crimes. The police can catch and track trolls and thieves today. But when things are completely private and anonymous. What happens then. Cyber crime is bound to increase.
When the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal is broke out.
The US government questioned Mark Zuckerberg mercilessly.
But who takes responsibility of scams in WEB3.0? Someone has hit the nail on the head
If you want to see someone's true face, put that person behind a mask.
Few months ago, $30 million worth of crypto was stolen from Crypto.com, this is not a small company, but it was impossible for them to catch thieves.
Blockchain is not perfectly secure. It is too early to shift 100% on blockchain. Because of these problems, a few days ago, a Twitter war broke out between Jack Dorsey and Balaji Srinivas
Where some WEB3.0 developer blocked the Twitter founder.
Elon Musk too mocked WEB3.0 and said "Has anyone seen WEB3.0? I can't seems to find it"
All these dramas are happening on the internet. It's true that, we are living in the exciting times. Because WEB3.0 is a idea and it is not easy to call it right or wrong today. the more freedom people get, the more this freedom will be abused.
What do you think? Is WEB3.0 our future? or is it a SCAM? Let's continue further discussion in comment box.
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